Day 7 ... Questions to Ponder

Discovering Yourself ...

You have, time and time again, experienced the creative urge for expression. You must be creative in your life or you feel deeply frustrated ... There must be a givingness in all you do, otherwise you are depriving yourself of life

How do you see your present relationship with time?

What emotional need in you is calling to be satisfied today?

What need of others in your life or elsewhere will you seek to respond to today or this week?

What will you do to restore, maintain, or further stimulate your physical energy within your lifestyle?

What core values are leading your choice of activity today or this week?

How will you fulfill your need for intellectual stimulation or creativity this week?

Wishing you a richer fuller life this week!!

Days 5 & 6 ... Causeffect

The last two days of Mental Diet I have jammed together on purpose in very much the same way as I jammed cause and effect together into one word, as above. If you been in SOM 100 with me you'll be familiar with this idea. But to review for a moment, the Universe is a UNITY and therefore there cannot really be cause AND effect. The one must be included within the other in much the same way as the acorn is cause to the oak, so that the entire oak tree is in the acorn as Aquinas would say in potentia . That is to say there exists in the cause the possibility of the oak tree as well as all of the subsequent acorns and oak trees. I was listening to a wonderful discussion of "Time" on CBC's Ideas on Wednesday evening that also relates to this blog but that's for another time.

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/living-on-oxford-time/index.html

So day 5 is about cause and day 6 is about cause and as such they are both about effect. DAMN! I hope I can make myself clear about this. It is the Law of Causeffect that Kinnear says is inescapable. He says Life withholds nothing. Great news right? Well maybe. Embedded in my thought process about my health, wealth, and love life as cause is the outpicturing of that thought as effect. I don't have to work on it or struggle with it anymore than the acorn has to work at becoming an oak. All I need to do is recognize it and ask myself, "So is this the life you want."

My notes to myself when I worked on this last in 2003 were about controlling the outer ... even other people; using the Law. It's great to recognize that I'm learning a few things too. My old buddy Plotinus affirms that for me.

"As for Soul, the part of it directed to Intellect (Spirit) is, so to speak, within, and the part outside Intellect directed to the outside." (Enneads V. 3-7)

So long as we remain filled with our illusory ego-selves, absorbed in what we mistakenly consider ourselves to be, Spirit can only "write its Laws" on whatever blank pages of Soul exist."

When we use the Law we may, in fact in our own minds at least, become more spiritual. When we let the Law use us we become more Spirit. Use of the Law is intellectual. To be used by the Law is to live at the level of the intuitive faculty. When I let Life help me, as Kinnear suggests, I live at the level of the intuitive action of LIfe in me, as me. The battle that I wage is not with life or even the circumstances or conditions of my life. Instead I become aware that the only thing against me is my own thinking.

How much potential is there in an acorn? We know for a fact that there is at least one 1000 year old oak and innumerable 999 year old oaks and in fact a virtually inexhaustible supply of 998, 997, 996 year olds etc. etc. The acorn uses all that it is because it knows intuitively (in a manner of speaking) all that it is. We on the other hand often do not use all that we have because we have forgotten all that we are. The hidden splendor of the human being spoken of by Wordsworth, the splendour of the Sefirot, all of the created world, is what we have lost sight of. We now find ourselves imprisoned in the dark world of the Law. Kinnear finally says on Day 6, Free Yourself! Instead of knowing the laws of the cosmos come to know you are the lawgiver.

Day 4 How's My Blood Pressure?

How does this sound?

"As I renew the content of my body with only good and constructive elements, I know that my entire body is remade to conform with the nutritive value of these foods."

Is there anyone who would question the truth of that statement? Is there anyone who would affirm that a diet of junk food is n likely to be of greater benefit to me than a well-balanced regime of nutricious and wholesome foods? The answer is obvious yet even an hour spent watching TV will present us with a bizarre dichotomy; depictions of beautiful people doing healthy and satisfying activities, playing sports, running, dancing, enjoying a rich full life. These programs are sandwiched in between ads for junk food. We are a society which aspires to be happy, healthy and have a good life but in reality chooses something quite different.

Kinnear says in today's reading. "Constructive thinking ... is creating good in your life and experience rather than wishing things were better and thinking constantly about how bad they (things) are." The "armchair quarterback" in me will admire the skill, strength and agility of the pro athlete, secretly wishing that were me on the field and then head to the kitchen for the Cheetos and another beer.
What really stands out for me in "The Diet" today is how creative of my experience my thought really is and it is not only what I might call the systolic movement of thought (Sorry about the reference. I had my blood pressure taken yesterday.) when my mind is pumping out "good" ideas but the diastolic, when my mind is at rest. Well maybe my mind is not at rest but rather in its old familiar pattern.

There is a lot of press in the New Thought community for thinking good thoughts; doing affirmations, Treating, praying, visualizing and all manner of systolic mental activities. Today I'm curious about how creative my negative patterns of thought are. Ernest Holmes maintains "All thought is creative." When I say negative I mean diastolic. Nobody would say it is a negative thing when my heart is at rest. Nor would I say that it's negative when my mind is at rest. I guess my question is where does my mind take its rest? What is the prevailing pattern of my thought when I am not consciously working on something?

Day 3 and the Social Activist

The calamity in Haiti has thrust the whole question of social activism into the foreground of our thoughts these days. Questions about who is doing what for Haiti and who is not doing enough lead me to I ask, "What am I doing? Is it enough? Can I do more?"

I was recently watching my friend Edvard Viljoen on Spirit TV as he delivered his Sunday Lesson from CSL Santa Rosa and he made a reference to Emma Curtis Hopkins. Beloved Emma, mystic, absolutist for consciousness, keeper of the "High Watch" always hammering away at the fact that "You have no other work and no more important work than raising your own consciousness." Isnt it amazing that, that doesn't feel like enough. When faced with the destruction and loss of life on the scale of Haiti or the tsunami of 2004 raising my consciousness feels like a cop out. Like the thing you do when you don't want to do anything else.

Edvard went on to say that the person of "raised consciousness" would find and be lead to a sphere of action that would be THE most effective one for him by virtue of the degree of livingness that he brings to life. In the end the best action steps for all are the ones that are best for us.

Today, Willis Kinnear tells me why I'm important. Two phrases struck me in my reading this morning. In You Have a Job to Do " ... there is a limitless potential of ability that is always trying to find its way into expression through you." I believe this to be true and so raising my consciousness enables me to discover where and how that limitless potential will find expression. Today I am more aware of my importance as a unique individualization of Life's purpose.

Kinnear goes on to say in the next section Live Up to Your Own Importance "Live up to that importance, You have an obligation to Life. Live. Be, not do!!

Seems to me I undervalue consciousness because I undervalue being in favour of doing. Seems to me that what Emma was saying is that you came here to be and doing is something you do while you're here. That your doing finds its greatest expression and its highest expression when it flows naturally out of your "being" So is there anything more important than raising my consciousness? I said on Sunday, Haiti is a calamity and we can deal with that and are dealing with it. More importantly, Haiti is a tragedy and I wonder if we are dealing with that. Haiti is a tragedy in the fact that it is the poorest of the countries in the western hemisphere; that 80% of its population is unemployed and more than 50% are illiterate. It is a tragedy because when calamity on this scale struck there was no infrastructure to fall back on. Prosperity, education, social services, purpose and meaning are ideas, tools of the mind, expressions of consciousness. Perhaps I have failed Haiti because I have not assumed my position of importance. I have not done all that I can do to express love, harmony and creativity for the greatest possible good right where I am.

Day 2

There are two images of Adam and Eve in the Garden that Joseph Campbell talks about. The Myth itself seems to be about gardens and gardeners. Who will look after the garden? In the 1st Chapter of Genesis, man grows out of the garden. He is made of the mud of the place. He grows out of the organic material of the place itself. In Chapter 2, he is pitched into the garden from somewhere else, a weird interloper, an accidental tourist who ends up having to look after it.

Within these two stories, one can see the entire history of our race on the planet; everything from colonial conquest, "Manifest Destiny" to the space race of the 60's to the ecological and environmental challenges we face today. Not to get too pop culture on you but Avatar is the latest great meeting place of the two cultures of Genesis; the Nav'i of Chapter 1 and the Earthlings are Chapter 2. Whether you're from 1 or 2, you ARE the point of power that Kinnear talks about in the reading for today, "Where Are You"? It is not a requirement that we know that we are one with ALL that is, to make it so but it is useful. Jake's journey in Avatar is to become aware of the fact that he part of a universe that is intelligent, orderly and definite. The nature and purposefulness of the garden is built in to him as part of the grand design.

To be at the point of power is to be at the point of limitless possibilities. All of the creative potential of the garden, its creative action is available in that particular place; essentially right where Jake was; right where you are, right now. Sages and scientists have known this, as you can see, from the beginning of human history. There was a point in our evolution when it looked as if it served us to imagine ourselves as separate from the natural world. It is now dawning on us that such an approach to Life does not serve us and that stubborn adherence to such a view will insure that we do not survive.

What is true for the macrocosm must also be true for the microcosm and vice versa. Here comes my attempt to bring this to a personal level! As I did my "required reading" this morning, I was thinking what could this possibly have to do with me. Again ideas of separation turned out to be the key. The idea that life is happening outside of me; that there are forces arrayed out there that can hinder me; that at some point in the future I might be in the right place or right circumstances to take advantage of an opportunity, a job, a windfall.

If I knew that I could bring all the forces of Nature to bear on something in my life right now what would that something be?

"The infinite potentiality and possibility of every good thing is immediately available to me right now, right where I am."

Did Kinnear build a convincing argument today; present a plausible theory? Try it out. What have you got to lose?

Today I will apply this idea to the following aspects of my thoughts and actions ...

My particular problem, condition, or situation which it can be used to correct is ...

Day 1

Maybe you've read the capsule statement for today ...

"There is only One Mind, Spirit, or Intelligence which increasingly flows into fuller harmonious expression as all that I am. As I now affirm this, and accept it, so it is done."

... and your wondering, like me. That all sounds really good but what does that have to do with my problem. My problem is real and that statement as nice, comforting and re-assuring as it is, is pretty theoretical. Well you're right. Your/my problem is real. Well real for me. Real in my mind. You might want to check it out with someone you trust and someone whose consciousness you respect to find out if your situation or condition is as real to them.
As far as the theory put forth by our author. It is just that, a theory and a theory is only as good as the experimental evidence you can bring forth to prove it. So I suggest you try it out. That's what Ernest Holmes would have told Willis when he was a student. It is what he would tell you today. It is what he says on page 51 of the Science of Mind,

"One of the great difficulties of any new order of thought is that we are likely to indulge in too much theory and too little practice. As a matter of fact, we can only know as much as we can prove by actual demonstration. That which we cannot prove may or may not be true but that which we can prove MUST be, and IS, the truth."

So what a great place to begin a new diet. Eliminate sugar, alcohol, bread or meat from your diet and see what happens. I'm going to begin today by eliminating those thoughts that have proven in the past to be damaging to my self-esteem and my self-worth. I once had a man in counseling who often referred to himself and being "not the sharpest tool in the shed." One day, in a session, he announced to me that he had decided to eliminate that phrase from his conversation. He reported over the weeks that followed how people suddenly began to compliment him on decisions he was making and how great it felt to say "thank you" when they did.

We are all familiar with the words of Yoda, "Do or do not. There is no "try" Make a note of the number of times in a day when you "try" to do something and then start eliminating it form your mental diet. Many years ago I eliminated the word problem from my vocabulary and replaced it with struggle. Well recently I've notice how much I struggle with things. It's time to refine my "diet". I'm becoming increasingly allergic to struggle.

Intelligence is in fact flowing into fuller harmonious expression in my life but it can only work with what I give it by means of raw material. My body may be getting stronger and fitter as a result of the exercise I do but I need to feed it as well. Chips and a beer after a workout just won't cut it. Taking a look at myself in the mirror will prove that.

30 Day Mental Diet: A Beginning

Joseph Campbell said that the stories we tell ourselves are an attempt to answer the following questions, or versions of them. Who am I? Where am I going? What is my life about? Am I important? Does all of this mean anything?

The stories we tell ourselves are our attempts at explanations and they reveal more about the storyteller and his worldview than adequately answering any of those questions. A story is nothing more than an accumulation of all of our struggles, desires, hopes and successes in a narrative. So the author of the Noah story told us what was scariest in his desert world ... a flood.

Shakespeare caught up in the dramatic social upheavals of the Elizabethan era told us that life is about growth and change. More modern authors like Orwell and Huxley on the verge of yet a new era wrote of the uncertainty, darkness and promise before us.

If our life is about questions and we (or those we empower) are the ones who ultimately supply the answers, then I want to look very carefully to see where those answers are coming from.

Noah's flood reported by CNN would have been a very different affair. Who knows what Fox's coverage of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I with Nancy Grace adding local gossip from Stratford would have made of William Shakespeare.

A Mental Diet might mean tuning out the worst of the sensationalist news reporting than convinces us that life is something that is happening "to" us. It might mean nourishing our life with prayers of gratitude and faith. It would most certainly mean taking responsibility for how lean and mean my spiritual life is or how soft and flabby my consciousness has become.

For the next 30 days I'm going to be watching my Mental Diet; working from the book by Willis Kinnear, The 30 Day Mental Diet. Willis Kinnear was a student of Ernest Holmes, author of the Science of Mind. His book is available at the Centre.